It’s been a little quiet on Substack, but I have a new essay out IN PRINT that I’d love for you to read. My essay, “What I Took From The River,” was a finalist for Tulip Tree’s Wild Women story contest and can be found in their Summer 2022 collection here.
This essay was born from a trip to Yosemite National Park while working for a previous organization. The whole week, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the feminine was so lacking in our work, and our conversations around climate change, and the outdoors. I was especially feeling exhausted by the cumbersome tales, quotes, and stories of John Muir. Then, as if by magic, some friends and I discovered $37 tucked into the bottom of the Merced River. And it got me wondering how it ended up there, and if a witch had lured us in.
You can see a preview of the essay below, but I hope you’ll consider purchasing the collection (just $14!) to read the full story.
An excerpt from “What I Took From The River.”
John the Baptist plunged Jesus into the Jordan River and it was, well, baptism. John Muir—that continuing problematic character—had to take it a step further saying, “Heaven knows that John Baptist was not more eager to get all his fellow sinners into the Jordan than I to baptize all of mine in the beauty of God’s mountains.” And so the infernal measuring contest between men was underway.
In 1880 Muir married Louisa Strentzel and brought her to Yosemite. I imagine he expected to have a long and happy marriage, so it must have been especially disappointing when Louisa’s fear of bears and trouble climbing at Muir's pace made her first trip to Yosemite her last. She never returned to the “beauty of God’s mountains” again.
At the time, I couldn’t know if my first trip to Yosemite would be my last. I didn’t imagine it would be, though I craved to return and experience that place without all the posturing around the campfire every night. I don’t doubt Louisa’s fear of bears—my own fear has kept me wary of grizzly country for a long time—but made to keep pace with Muir and his ego, I probably would not have wanted to return in that way either. Despite our 140 year gap in history, I felt a deep connection with Louisa.
I’ve often wondered, made to keep pace with only myself, what other opportunities I may have had in life. Rather than falling in love with people or landscapes in the slow and attentive way I prefer, I have so often been forcibly baptized in them instead—often by men.
How different could Louisa’s life have been? How different could mine still be? I have fantasized about what it would be like to take Louisa by the hand and tenderly introduce her to that valley in the ways her husband couldn’t. I’d let Johnny disappear into the hills at his insufferable, competitive pace, while Louisa and I waded bare-skinned into the Merced. Perhaps we’d spot a bear lumbering down to the water’s edge, the Greek goddess Artemis, priestess and protectress of the Pole Star helping us overcome any fear. We’d be baptized then not by Muir, or even God’s mountains, but rather by the ruler of the cosmos herself.